Nov. 15, 2012

Volunteers at the Dodge Poetry Festival showed attendees how to properly recycle. / Courtesy of Clean Water Fund

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@MeghanVanDykDR

The Morris County Park Commission's Community Garden donated more than 1,000 pounds of fresh vegetables to the Interfaith Food Pantry. / Daily Record 2012

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Talk about bounty.

This growing season, the Morris County Park Commission’s Community Garden donated more than 1,000 pounds of fresh vegetables to the Interfaith Food Pantry.

That’s cool, but even cooler is the 1,060-pound bounty of tomatoes, tomatillos, beets, beans, onions, squash and lettuces was all grown in a 200-square-foot plot tended by volunteers.

“The number of people the food pantry is servicing is staggering — that there is a food insecurity issue where we live is incredible,” said Cynthia Triolo, horticultural program specialist with the Park Commission. “The gardeners thought we could make a difference and help.”

For the last three years, the gardeners have grown vegetables to donate to the Interfaith Food Pantry in one of the garden’s 114 plots, Triolo said. Last year, they donated about 325 pounds. This year, they decided they could do better.

“Through trial and error, we’ve come up with a really good way to do it,” Triolo said. “We planted eight raised beds inside the plot and had volunteers tend each bed. That way they knew if it’s been weeded or needs water. And we tried to grow things that would get the best possible yield.”

The gardeners had some help this year from the Rutgers Master Gardeners of Morris County who tended a teaching tomato plot. All the heirloom tomatoes were donated to the food pantry.

Dodge Poetry Fest recycling impact

The amount of recyclables collected at the four-day Dodge Poetry Festival in Newark is in.

A team of volunteers helped keep 2,993 pounds of food waste, 638 pounds of bottles and cans an untold amount of paper and cardboard out of landfills at the event, held Oct. 11 to 14, according to Priscilla Hayes, a recycling expert working with the Clean Water Fund. In contrast, she said, the total weight of the trash collected during the poetry festival was 1,020 pounds.

“That’s a substantial amount for four days,” Hayes said. “We didn’t know what to expect. The main purpose was to head toward zero-waste. And while I can’t say we got every bit of trash, we did move closer to zero waste.”

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Working in partnership with the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the City of Newark, the N.J. Performing Arts Center, Clean Water Fund assembled a team of green volunteers and staff that worked at five different stations throughout the festival area in downtown Newark to minimize its environmental impacts through waste reduction and reuse techniques. The volunteers helped festival-goers sort recycled materials.

The recycled goods were sent to a composting facility in Wilmington Peninsula.

“A positive thing out of this is that we did it,” Hayes said. “The PAC can lead the way. It’s a great model.”

NOFA-NJ project closer to fruition

The Northeast Organic Farming Association needs your help. The organization took their campaign to raise $15,000 for its Beginning Farmer Incubator to the crowd-sourcing website Kickstarter.com.

While the goal has been reached, the funds are a small part of the $50,000 the non-profit organization needs to build a greenhouse to get an early start on organic crops, irrigation to help farmers better weather the inevitable droughts, and important farm equipment like a sturdy tractor, according to Eve Minson, who runs the Beginning Farmer Incubator.